Two weeks since my last post. It’s not for lack of trying new recipes. I have tried several, and all have been major flops. There were “store bought cookies” that tasted nothing like the classics we grew up with. There were stews and muffins and biscuits and… well, the list is long and the results were depressing. I finally decided to go with a recipe that could not possibly fail: coffee cake, and a William Sonoma recipe to boot. And now look at me! I know it may seem absurd, but it’s February and here I am pulling out pumpkin show stoppers.  I was so nauseous all of November that I missed my pumpkin fix. After 17 looooong weeks into being pregnant, I am finally getting my appetite back. And so it’s time to pull out some of those recipes that I would have made back in autumn if I had not been so sick.

Continue reading: pumpkin streusel coffee cake

I found this recipe in The Cheeseboard Collective Cookbook and almost passed it up simply because it seems that everyone already has their favorite chocolate cake. I decided to try these cakes anyway and I’m so glad that I did! They are delicious! I absolutely loved them topped with sweetened whipped cream, drizzled with a homemade chocolate syrup, and sprinkled with cocoa nibs. Divine! I plan on submitting a recipe like this to the Scharffenberger Elevate a Classic Dessert Challenge. Maybe I’ll win $10,000!

It’s a shame that I’ve been blogging for years and have never shared with you the recipe for the best chocolate chip cookie you will ever eat. I’ve been tinkering with this recipe for quite a while now and let me tell you… it’ll knock your socks off. I served it at a baby shower a few weeks ago and literally had ladies begging me with money in hand to sell them the recipe. I promised I would post the recipe soon (for free!) and then promptly forgot. Story of my life.

What makes these cookies the best? It really comes down to so many things. First, the chocolate. Don’t use chocolate chips. Use a bar of bittersweet chocolate chopped into chunks. I prefer to use Trader Joe’s Bittersweet Pound Plus Bar. Microwave it for a few seconds if it’s too hard to chop and it will soften just enough to allow a blade to cut into it. Texture is another important element to any chocolate chip cookie. These are crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. Perfection. The original cookie recipe on which this cookie is based came from some anonymous source on-line that my mom emailed to me years ago. I’d love to give credit where credit is due, but unfortunately I cannot. The baking techniques are from Pam Anderson’s book The Perfect Recipe. This is one of the few cookbooks and refer to often. The sprinkle of flaked sea salt on top was my own idea, albeit borrowed from hundreds of other such cookie recipes on the web. Altogether, this cookie is phenomenal. And the other great thing about this recipe? You can cook exactly as many cookies as you want to eat that day so you will never have to eat a stale cookie again!

My friend Bridget asked me if I would donate cookies to her school’s fundraising event. One of the challenges of being a food blogger is finding a home for all the desserts that I bake, so these kinds of opportunities are a great excuse to try a new recipe. Bridget specifically wanted me to donate a few already-baked cookies along with a couple of bags of frozen cookie dough so that the lucky winner would not have to eat 4 dozen cookies at once. I flipped through my must-make-cookies and came across this recipe that a friend had forwarded to me months ago.

After reading the directions, I realized that their assembly was way too complicated for me to ask someone else to prepare at home. It involved dividing dough balls into disks, mashing cream cheese between the disks and pinching the dough balls together while hoping that the cream cheese would not ooze out any cracks that formed. A tester batch was in order. I prepared one cookie as directed in the recipe and two cookies with a small amount of cream cheese pressed into the center of the baked cookie. A friend dropped by randomly and we taste tested the results. The cream-cheese topped cookies were a clear winner. My friend declared these cookies some of the best snicker doodles she has ever had. I’m not usually a snicker doodle fan, but I could see why she liked them so much. They are crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and the cream cheese topping is really something special.

When I saw this casserole on How Sweet It Is, I wondered if it tasted as good as it looked. The presentation certainly was gorgeous and the idea of chopping pecans with oatmeal and nuts to make a crumble topping was brilliant. I could not wait until Thanksgiving day to make this recipe.

I halved the recipe and cooked it in a mini-springform pan as a trial run. I ate a scoop for lunch and took the rest to share with friends. They each grabbed a spoon and before long the entire dish had disappeared. I thought the casserole could use a little more sugar, another deemed it just right and another friend said that he’d reduce the sugar a bit. So that settles it. You’ll have your own opinions, so taste the sweet potato mixture before you top it with the crumble. I also thought a little orange zest would add a fun kick to this dish. Someone in our group playfully threatened to stab me with a fork when I mentioned this. If you want to try the orange zest, maybe you should run it by your family before you do.

Continue reading: prettier (and healthier!) sweet potato casserole

As a general rule, my philosophy on dessert is, “If it doesn’t have chocolate, why bother?” These cookies break that rule. My mom makes pecan sandies every year for Christmas. They are lightly sweet, deeply buttery and over-the-top delicious. I am so glad that she shared the recipe with me so that I can share it with you. These are simple cookies to make and they are even easier to eat! They hold up well to give away as gifts. Don’t just bake them at Christmas either! They’re delicious all year long!

Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes, I like spying on people. 

Not in a dirty way! I promise! Sheesh….

Anywho, this is a story about one of my spy missions. Â

Continue reading: spicy stuffed mushrooms

Today I’m revealing my first ever Secret Recipe Club recipe! I am enamored with the idea of this project. Essentially, those of us who have signed up to be in the SRC are assigned another blog at random to cook from and post about. I was so eager to receive my first SRC assignment that I started making recipes from Gorgeous Gourmet almost immediately. I settled on sharing these tortillas with you because they are a fun change from what I usually post about.

Here are my thoughts on tortillas. First off, never, ever buy tortillas from your grocery store unless there someone sitting there making them by hand and putting them in a paper bag for you to eat immediately. Store bought tortillas are impossibly old by the time you eat them for dinner and not very tasty at all. The best ever store-bought tortillas are sold as un-cooked tortillas. Live near a Costco? You’re in luck! Check in the refrigerator section and pick up a package! Toss half in the freezer and keep the other half in your fridge. Want a fresh tortilla? Just warm a skillet on the stove until a small pat of butter melts and plop in a tortilla. Thirty seconds to a minute later, you have a tasty, fresh, delicious tortilla that you can eat plain, fill with cheese, or use in this amazing tortilla casserole.

I know what you’re thinking. Green beans aren’t that exciting. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. These green beans are exciting. In fact, often times they’re my favorite part of the meal. Unless, of course, they are served alongside these mashed potatoes. I’d probably choose the potatoes just because puddles of melted butter scream my name in the night. TMI? Okay, I’ll stop.

There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that these biscuits are amazing. The bad news is that there’s a stick of butter in them, so your cardiologist isn’t likely going to recommend that you serve them with every meal. The good news is that they taste so good that you’ll *want* to serve them with every meal. Or is that bad news? Gosh, I’m confused.

These are so fluffy with their layers and layers of delicious pockets just screaming for you to fill them with a pat of cold butter. I love serving these biscuits along with my all-time-favorite minestrone. In that way, I feel like the healthiness of all those vegetables more than balances out a little bit of butter.

Worried about your waistline? If you are looking for a low-fat buttermilk biscuit, I have one for you here. You simply have to try to see beyond the absolutely awful photos. God bless 2009. It was a great year for everything except my photography skills. I love the lower fat biscuits as much as I love the high fat ones. That’s saying a lot because we all know how much I like my full-fat-junk-food. My friends rave about both recipes, so I recommend trying both and then deciding which you prefer!